2014-10-13: I just discovered that none of the original links are good. Two web sites linked from this post - Climate Choices, and the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) - now redirect to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
I first started writing this post in the Fall of 2006. I drafted it in October 2006, but never published it. I think I was too overwhelmed by the impact of what I was writing to release it. The
IPCC report has been issued since then. What I wrote over a year ago no longer sounds so alarmist to me. A post on
Garden Rant spurred me to dust this off and get it out there, however imperfect I may think it is.
There's a lot to this, and I've gone through some changes just to take it all in. Here's the short version:
- Climate change is inevitable. It's happening already. We can't undo the damage we've already caused. We can only ride it out.
- If we continue as we have, the impacts will be severe. It's going to get really, really bad.
- Actions we take now can reduce the impact. If we start doing things differently now, it won't get as bad as it could. We can affect the future.
There are those who cling, at times violently, to ignorance and dismissal of the facts of climate change induced by human activity. "De-nial ain't just a river in Egypt." It reminds me of the classical stages of grieving described 40 years ago by
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, all of which are demonstrated in different responses expressed around this topic:
- Denial. The three-dog argument - denial, minimization, projection - applies here: There's no climate change (it's not a problem). The climate change is within historical ranges (it's not so bad). It's a natural process (it's not my problem).
- Anger. Protest, boycott, rage against the machine, fight the system, fight the man.
- Bargaining. Carbon "credits" is the most obvious example. Little different from buying indulgences from a corrupt church.
- Depression. There's nothing we can do about it.
- Acceptance. It's going to happen. It's happening. Now what do we do about it?
In July 2006, I wrote about the
Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship:
The seventh generation would be my great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren's children. (If I had, or were going to have, any children to begin with.) If a generation occurs within the range of 20-30 years, we're talking 140-210 years. Call it 175 years from now.
It's the year 2181. It's hard for me to imagine anything I can do to stave off or reduce the multiple disasters which we will have caused.
That was the voice of depression. I feel some hope now. The changes I make now, the work I do now, can make a difference. But only if I accept what's going to happen if I do nothing.
